Woot woot! It’s time for my first monthly set-up of 2021! I CAN’T WAIT to move into my new journal- right now I’m in that awkward phase where I need both my 2020 and 2021 journals to plan stuff😂😂 The fresh start and clean spreads will be very welcome, because I’m ready to do some big things in 2021🥳

I really struggled to come up with a theme this month! I wanted something simple because I’m tired from all the drawing I did for my Sound of Music theme, but I still wanted it to be pretty and elegant. I was literally doing research for this because I wanted it to be meaningful as well, so I looked up different New Years traditions around the world and stuff like that. I finally stumbled upon the fact that January is named for the Roman god Janus, who was the god of duality and doors. I couldn’t really see how the duality part would fit into my journal, but I loved the idea of doors!! Doors remind me of new opportunities, and since it’s January it’s kind of like the “doorway” to the rest of the year. So I went with a door theme!

The doodles I did this month are pretty simple, which I love because it makes for quick and easy weekly spreads:) I went with a nice pale, kind of robin’s egg blue, and a pale-ish brown. These colours are kind of winter-y and I think they complement each other really well! I didn’t want to bring in too many colours because I wanted these pages to be fresh and clean. I did try to switch up my font a bit though to a more bouncy style, because if I’m going to do calligraphy every month I want to challenge myself a bit😂

I hope that this set-up gives you some inspiration for the year to come! Let’s get into it:)

My title page is up first! I drew a bunch of different kinds of doors- some rectangular, some rounded, some with a frame, and some without. I coloured them in with that brown and blue combo, and then added some washi tape! And there’s that bouncy font I was talking about. I like it a lot! For my quote page I wrote out a saying from Mary Poppins, which I thought was perfect for my theme, and for the beginning of the year.

Here’s my calendar/monthly dash board spread. Yes, I decided to go back to that one page calendar! I find that I really don’t write things down in my calendar all that much, and would rather use more space for writing down stuff for school and any goals I have. I did a shorter quote below the calendar, used more washi tape, and also drew some more doors.

Next we’ve got my trackers. Ever since last May I’ve taken this layout and ran with it- I love it so much! This month I’m tracking a bunch of habits, my mood, productivity, and workouts. I really want to plan my workouts more this year, so this will help me with that! Just a side note, I’m really proud of how I wrote my k😂 I’ve always struggled with calligraphic k’s so I’m glad I’m finally getting them down👌

This spread is super simple, but I’m glad that it is because I need the space! On the left is my gratitude log, where I drew a few doors and write the title in the middle. Then on the right I have lots of space to plan out my blog stuff! I highlighted the days that I’m actually posting in brown, so it’s easier for me to tell them apart.

Finally I did my first weekly spread! I decided to just combine that first Friday and Saturday with the following week, so I have nine days in here. This is one of my favourite weekly layouts because it’s simple and gives me a TON of space to plan. To spruce this one up, I drew some more doors, used some washi tape, and wrote out the days of the week in that bouncy calligraphy.

That’s all for January!! I love the simplicity of this theme, and am really excited to fill in these spreads with some great plans🙌 Make sure you tune in tomorrow for another instalment in this week of book and bullet journal posts!

Yours Truly,

Olivia:)))